Building Castles
by RegalPixieDust
Summary: When Regina sees the opportunity to give Marian and Robin the one thing in life they desire, she leaps at the chance. But when disaster strikes, she and Robin find themselves trapped beneath the crumbling rocks of the life they had come to love, and together they need to learn how to build castles from the rubble.


**A/N: Yay new story! I'm excited to write this one, so I hope you like it. Huge thanks to Brittany and AJ for the beta services. This is just a little prologue, chapter one will soon follow. **

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Regina has always known that her life is limitless, that she could end up anywhere in the world if she really put her mind to it. However, thirty-two years old and huddled around a face-down pregnancy test with her two best friends was never anywhere she'd imagined she would end up.

The pregnancy test is the only abnormal thing in the setting. If they weren't crowded around it, they'd be around the dining table with a glass of wine, laughing and enjoying each other's company as they do more often than not.

Regina couldn't help but notice that when Marian and Robin made their way into Regina's apartment tonight, they were donning their lucky clothes: an oversized, woollen, burgundy jumper on Marian and Regina could just make out the signs of Robin's forest green socks. Regina wanted to point them out, poke fun at them for it, but the time never felt right.

Marian's knee is bobbing up and down impatiently as she scratches fervently at her jeaned thighs. She's eager, groaning through a nervous laugh, "This is torture, can we turn it over now?"

Robin takes Marian's hand, linking his fingers with hers. "Not long now," he promises.

"How long?" she whines with a smirk.

Regina snorts a soft laugh through her nose before she and Robin share a quick glance at each other while chuckling at Marian's expense.

"Ten seconds less than the last time you asked," Regina announces, rolling her eyes when Marian sticks out her tongue in jest. She can't help but wonder if _she_ wore something lucky then maybe they wouldn't feel so nervous, but she wouldn't have known what to wear - maybe the Van Halen shirt she would deny she owns if asked or the cheetah print scrunchie she's had since she was in high school.

The jarring sound of the alarm from Robin's phone startles them, a wave of anxiety sweeping the room and consuming their lungs collectively. Regina looks are her friends, unsure. Of course, someone needs to pick up this test and read the results before they all combust, but she's not sure who should be the one to reach for it.

"May I?" Marian asks Regina, a permission that is nowhere near necessary. It's Marian's test when it comes down to it, so Regina nods, telling her to turn it over.

Marian couldn't have snatched it up faster, holding it awkwardly in both of her hands. She sighs when she turns it over and for a menacing moment, Regina can't read her face at all. Regina's heart is pounding in her chest, nerves commuting through her bloodstream, leaving a tingling trace along the way.

Regina's desperate to scream at her to announce the results of the test, wants to berate Marian for doing exactly to her what Ryan Seacrest used to do on a weekly basis to them during American Idol while they were growing up.

All becomes clear when Marian looks up from the plastic stick, eyes washed with unshed tears.

"Oh, my God," Regina breathes heavily placing a hand on her chest, right over the heart that's colliding rhythmically within her ribcage.

"You're pregnant," Marian whispers, smiling widely as she starts to tremble with excitement.

Robin takes the test from Marian, inspecting it closely before joining them in their disbelief and excitement and nervousness and a plethora of other emotions that are entirely indistinguishable from each other as they penetrate her body.

Robin and Marian share a long-awaited embrace but turn the attention to Regina. Robin stutters as he tries to find the words, opting for bouncing giddily around the table to embrace her just as fiercely as he did Marian, if not arguably a bit more. He all but lifts her off the ground and he mutters countless thank yous into her shoulder.

Marian cups Regina's face softly for a second, announcing again, "You're pregnant," as she gives Regina the test to see for herself.

And they are right, those are definitely two defined, pink lines instead of just one.

She's thrilled for them, over the moon, engulfed by pure joy as tears begin to gather in her own eyes. "You're both getting your family," Regina says softly, placing two palms gently over her abdomen.

Marian's struggle with fertility has been a lengthy, heartbreaking one. There have been lots of tears shed and negative pregnancy tests, procedures here and there that never helped, treatments that failed time and time again… it was painful to watch her friends be defeated over and over. When talks of surrogacy began and the impeccably expensive nature of the process came up, Regina found herself saying the words before she ever really processed them, offering to carry their baby without a shred of hesitation.

Regina can have children, her fifteen-year-old daughter, Dani, is a testament to that. Marian is a sister to her in every way but biological, she and Robin have been together and head over heels with each other for a sickeningly adorable amount of time. Offering to help give them a child felt like the most natural thing in the world, even if the idea was only awakened by the three or four glasses of wine she'd had.

She's never regretted her offer, especially not now that she can see what unadulterated and true joy looks like as it is plastered on the faces of her best friends.


End file.
